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Thomas Friedman, the three-time Pulitzer Prize winner for Middle East reporting seems to never be shy at demonstrating his complete ignorance, his willful naivete, and racist views on the region.

Friedman wrote an op-ed on May 22, 2018 that he “appreciate[s] the Gazans’ sense of injustice. Why should they pay with their ancestral homes for Jewish refugees who lost theirs in Germany or Iraq?” I am perhaps slightly glad he laid out that the basis for his sympathies was on a completely flawed view of reality.

Complete Ignorance

The international community made a declaration that the Jewish state should be reestablished in the Jewish holy land decades before the Holocaust. The San Remo Conference in 1920 and the Mandate of Palestine of 1922 made it clear in international law that the Jews had a long history throughout the holy land, not just in the western part of the holy land.

More specifically, to correct Freidman:

1. Jews came back to reestablish themselves in their holy land. They did not come as interlopers into someone else’s homes.

2. The movement of Jews to Palestine was established in international law. This was not a Jewish invasion or act of Britain alone.

3. The international laws were passed decades before World War II and the Holocaust. Israel was not created as a reaction to the Holocaust.

4. Jews did not seek to evict Arabs. It was the Arabs that went to war with the Jews to keep them from moving back into their Jewish holy land. The state of Israel welcomed all Arabs to become citizens of the state and help in its development. The 160,000 that stayed (18% of the population in 1948) have grown to 25% of the population in 2017. The Arabs that left in 1948 went to war to destroy Israel and continue to threaten it generations later.

5. The Jews that left homes in Germany and Iraq were hunted and persecuted by their governments. The Arabs that left homes in Israel were those that opted to launch a civil war to destroy a new country at its rebirth.

Friedman inverted plain facts. He proclaimed his sympathies with the Palestinians on the basis of lies.

Further, his prescription for a solution was packed with both falsehoods and racist ideas.

Willful Naivete

7. Hamas is not just “the Palestinian Islamist organization that rules the Gaza Strip.” It is recognized as a terrorist group by the US, Israel and many countries. And it was voted into a majority of parliament by Palestinians with full knowledge of these facts including having the most anti-Semitic charter in the world.

8. To state that Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority is “secular, more moderate” than Hamas is to compare the ninth and fifth rings of Hell. Abbas is way more radical and extreme than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (who Friedman paints as being just like Hamas). Abbas is a Holocaust denier, denies the history of Jews in the holy land, calls for a country to be Jew-free, has laws that call for the death sentence for any Arab selling land to a Jew, pays for people to kill Israeli Jews, and names tournaments and squares after terrorists. How does this man and the PA remotely resemble anything moderate?

Racist Views

Friedman added to his fiction with jaundiced views about Jews and Arabs.

9. Why is Gaza Israel’s responsibility? Israel left the region in 2005 for the local Palestinian Arabs to rule themselves (for the first time in their history). Is the US responsible for Mexico’s welfare? Why isn’t Egypt called upon to handle the derelict region at its border? Does Friedman believe that Jews are uniquely responsible for neighbors?

10. “Two states for two people” as Friedman suggests means either that Jews can become a minority in Palestine the same way that Arabs are a minority in Israel, or it means that each country must be “pure.” Is Friedman suggesting that Israel expel its 2 million Arabs or is he suggesting 1.5 states for Arabs and 0.5 for Jews because Jews should be banned from the western part of the holy land, but not the Arabs in Israel? Either way, it sounds pretty racist to either expel non-Jews or ban Jews.

Fantasy

Friedman has not internalized that the Palestinians are no closer to welcoming their Jewish neighbors today than they were 100 years ago. He posits that the most antisemitic people should approach the border “with an olive branch in one hand and a sign in Hebrew and Arabic in the other, saying, “Two states for two peoples: We, the Palestinian people of Gaza, want to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish people — a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, with mutually agreed adjustments.” What a moron.

Maybe the US special forces should have shown up at Osama bin Laden’s house with girl scout cookies and asked him nicely to stop killing thousands of people. Maybe he could propose that the Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria should drop cotton candy on his people rather than chemical weapons. Friedman’s recommendations could have been written by a second grader with no comprehension of the world.

But Friedman knows the facts. He deliberately lifted from the deceased former leader of the PLO Yasser Arafat’s (fungus be upon him) 1974 speech at the United Nations: “I come to you bearing an olive branch in one hand and a freedom fighter’s gun in the other. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.” Friedman chose to ignore the plain and consistent fact that the Palestinians have chosen violence over coexistence with the Jewish State and put forward a non-solution that fails to address the situation.

I have been asked how I feel about killing terrorists in one word. One word. A mark of society’s attention span. Even bumper stickers use more ink.

It is not simple to break down my feelings into a single word.

On one hand, I believe that every life is precious. Such sentiment would lead me to conclude that the right word would be “sad.” Sad that a human life will be extinguished.

But I cannot ignore that the targeted human being in question is a terrorist.

Palestinian terrorists carry the body of Mohammed Obied of Hamas in the central Gaza Strip on June 30, 2014 (photo credit: Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)
A terrorist is not just someone that probably has killed and injured people in the past so their death may be viewed as a just punishment. A terrorist is someone that will likely kill again in the future. The end of such a threat would lead me to conclude that the right word is “relieved.”

I would much rather this human being not be a terrorist than wish him dead. But if this person is set on his ways, readied to harm civilians and committed to a path of death and destruction, and there is no way to stop him from his actions, well, then, maybe I do have a word.

He looked past the fidgit spinner in his hand to a virtually empty production facility. Only two people moved about the large kite manufacturing assembly line that once handled 20 people. He let a long breath escape his mouth as he looked down at the fidgit spinner. He pondered whether it would be better to spin it counter-clockwise rather than clockwise as an Israeli that read from right-to-left.

The phone rang. The sound washed out every noise in the warehouse.

“Alo,” Duvi whispered into the phone, with a voice dry and crackled as he hadn’t spoken in almost an hour. One of the two workers turned to listen to him.

“What?! Be’emet?! (truly?)” he called out to the world as much as to the person on the other end of the conversation. He smacked his forehead and broke into a grin “Sababa! Thank you so much!” and hung up.

“Hudi, you will not believe it! We are back in business!” Call Moishe and Rachel to get over here,” Duvi called out as he sprang from his desk.

“What is it, what’s going on,” Hudi asked. “Who was that on the phone?”

“The Minister of Defense,” he said proudly. “The Israeli army just ordered 10,000 kites. It would seem that our government has been ordered to use ‘proportionate action’ against the Gazans so needs an arsenal of kites to counter Hamas’s petrol kites.”

“Well, we cannot use our standard kites then,” Hudi considered. “We will need to strengthen the wires to support the added weight. It’ll also need a proper basket to carry the gasoline.”

The other worker Sara heard what was going on and chimed in. “We need to build something other than a basket as the lit fire would ignite the kite.” Sara pulled out a piece of paper and began to design a fire-bombing kite that would be both flight-worthy and effective.

Duvi grabbed the phone and began to dial, speaking to both Hudi and Sara. “I will call Izik to provide the latest fiber technology and Omri has an amazing lighter and stronger replacement material for nylon. The stronger and lighter materials will compensate for the weight of the gasoline.”

Within ten minutes they had designed and placed orders for materials for a newly designed kite that incorporated some artificial intelligence that would help the kite fly itself in high winds. It was brilliant.

They looked at each other and did a group hug. Sara smiled and noted “You know that the air force is going to claim they own the patent on this now,” and they all laughed.

Hudi asked, “Should we decorate the kite? Hamas is sending over their kites into Israel with swastikas, apparently the group with whom they most relate. What should we use?”

“Do you think they use Nazi propaganda because they think like Nazis or because they believe that we will become more scared of them because of the Nazi imagery?” asked Duvi.

“Probably both,” answered Sara.

“Then let’s continue the measure-for-measure against them,” Hudi said defiantly. “Let them see the images of the people that will bring their destruction. Let’s use mirrors so that they see themselves.”

Gazan prepare their fire-bombing kites for Israel, 2018

The phone rang again. They smiled too soon.

“Alo!” Duvi answered loudly. “What?! No, no, no. We’re all done. It’s brilliant!” he protested. “The world has never seen a kite like ours.” He shook his head and listened some more. “I’m sure. Yes, I get it. OK. bye.”

Duvi turned to Sara and Hudi and said “We have to hold off on building these. It seems that the special United Nations representative for the Palestinians has demanded that we cannot use Israeli ingenuity in defending ourselves either. We have to use the exact same armaments as the Palestinians use. A Norwegian NGO is now dropping off kites and slingshots for the IDF and monitoring the border to ensure no sophisticated weaponry is used against the Gazans.”

Sara slumped in a chair. Hudi was more defiant. “Will they also drop off knives and butcher cleavers for us to stab Arabs in mosques as they pray? Who are these morons?”

Duvi tried to console her. “Stop. They are not morons. They are ‘progressives’ that have the luxury of living in a peaceful environment. We are the morons for listening to them.”

Sara whimpered “Maybe we can send our new kites to Gaza for Hamas to use?”

Duvi grabbed the fidgit spinner that had fallen to the floor. He bit into it to see if it was real.

On May 14, 2018, the United States of America moved its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The choice of May 14 was chosen to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Israel’s declaration of independence. Just as President Harry Truman chose to have the United States of America be the first country to officially recognize the Jewish State in 1948, President Donald Trump elected to have the USA be first to formally recognize Israel’s capital in the modern day.

Some protests – particularly from the Muslim, Arab and far-left world – have been loud and furious. This group (and yes, they are coalescing into a single mass) argue that recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel without having a similar declaration for Palestinians is unfair. They note that Trump’s action will make the Arab world angry and provoke violence, leading to deaths on both sides of the conflict. Further, such a move does nothing to advance the cause of peace and is therefore a terrible mistake.

I will not argue that they are not entitled to their opinion. I will instead consider their arguments as though it was 1948.

Front page of the New York Times, May 15, 1948

Consider:

Zionists declared an independent country in 1948, even though the local Arab population did not. Was it wrong for the US to recognize the Jewish State even though there was not a corresponding local Arab state?

The Arab world was furious with the declaration of the Jews and the US response. The armies of five Arab armies (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt) invaded Israel in a war that claimed thousands of lives.

No peace has come to the region. Now, over 70 years later, the Israelis have only been able to forge a peace agreement with two Arab countries, Egypt and Jordan.

The arguments of 1948 and 2018 seemingly remain the same. The US recognition was and is unbalanced, foments violence and harms peace efforts. One would therefore conclude that Truman was as wrong as Trump, and for many in the Arab/Muslim/alt-left camp (let’s call them “AMAL” for short, which means “hope” in Arabic), that is very true. (Note: Hebrew, which is read right-to-left would call these people “LAMA” which means “why?”)

But to do so is to contort cause-and-effect, actual history-with-“my truth” philosophy, and equality-with-fairness.

The AMAL legions believe that Israel is a foreign transplant in Arab land. They did not recognize the rights of Jews to live in and have sovereignty in the region in 1922 (as encouraged in international law in the Mandate of Palestine), in 1948 (at Israel’s declaration of independence) and do not recognize it now (as the US embassy moved to Jerusalem). They want Jerusalem for a capital today just as they wanted Haifa as part-and-parcel of Arab Palestine in 1948. They have fought tooth-and-nail against these events for 100 years.

For AMAL, accepting a foreigner stealing your home and land is a negation of one’s narrative and one’s dignity, and there can be no peace without dignity.

The alt-left has joined the anti-Zionist AMAL army in greater numbers as they have embraced and advanced the notion of “my truth” broadly. While the “progressives” may occasionally become offended at the vile anti-Semitism spewed by Palestinian Arabs, the Arab rejection of thousands of years of Jewish history in the holy land and the centrality of the land of Israel in Judaism, the alt-left have nevertheless adopted the underdog. They have redefined the conflict as a matter between Israel and the stateless Palestinians rather than the 100-year old Israel-Arab conflict. The alt-left sees a powerful Israel both economically and militarily on one side against a stateless impoverished people. They therefore see complete lack of equality in the actors, as they narrow the scope past the 20+ Arab and 50+ Muslim countries that dwarf the population of Jews in Israel by 100-to-1, to a scenario where Israel is the Goliath.

With such a mindset, the AMAL army contends that Trump added fuel to the fire of an unfair dynamic, just as when Truman blessed the theft of Arab land in 1948. The action continues to move the parties away from their perceived only pathway to peace which includes a bi-national Israel and a purely Arab Palestine.

The pro-Zionist camp sees the world very differently. It celebrates Truman’s recognition of Israel as part of the restoration of the Jewish people in their homeland. They know that if the Jewish State had been reestablished a decade earlier in the 1930s, tens of thousands of Jews would have been saved from the Holocaust. And they admire the thriving stable democracy which Israel has become, in the middle of a vicious and violent Arab Middle East. Recognition and partnership have been beneficial to both the USA and Israel.

But the soldiers of AMAL deny any recognition of Israel’s reality, whether Jerusalem as its capital, its flag in Judo tournaments, the research of its professors and the goods from the country. Thirty countries in AMAL still do not recognize the State of Israel. Their belief that the United States continues to be wrong from Truman to Trump runs deep.

The lines in the conflict continue to cut deeper. Do not simply consider whether the United States’ recognition of the capital of Israel was right or wrong because it is likely clouded by personal perceptions of Donald Trump. Ask yourself if you think president Truman was right in recognizing Israel 70 years ago to understand whether you are part of the AMAL horde or stand proudly with Israel.

On May 14, 1948, Israel declared itself a new independent country, as the British Mandate of Palestine expired. The declaration of independence stated that the country will be “for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”

It welcomed everyone.

Unfortunately, at that same time, the Arabs in Palestine had been rioting and killing Jews for many months in attempts to stop the Jewish State from coming into existence. Once Israel declared its independence, five armies from neighboring Arab countries came to destroy the nascent state. The war would go on for months. Israel survived.

Despite the Arab war against the Jews before Israel’s independence and after, Israel remained true to its vision of welcoming non-Jews as full citizens in the country. Approximately 156,000 non-Jews became citizens of Israel at the Jewish State’s rebirth, around 18% of the population. In 2018, 70 years later, the non-Jewish population in Israel stands at over 2 million people, representing over 25% of the Israeli population.

Israeli Arabs having a picnic in the shade under the ancient aqueduct in Caesarea(photo: First.One.Through)

The Arab citizens of Israel have availed themselves of the open society that Israel created.

There are currently 18 Arabs in the Israeli Knesset, 15% of the parliament. By way of comparison, there are only 50 blacks (9%) in the US Congress

Israel has non-Jewish Arabs on the Supreme Court, Salim Joubran being the first in 2004

Non-Jews have served as Israeli ambassadors around the world, including to Norway and the Dominican Republic

Non-Jews serve as generals in the Israeli army

Non-Jews are a key fabric of Israeli society, as envisioned in the Israeli declaration on May 14, 1948 that welcomed non-Jews to “participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.”

It is appropriate to take the time to celebrate Israel’s non-Jewish citizens that chose to make peace with Israel, not war; that chose to help build the state, not to dismantle it; that chose to stay and be friends and neighbors with Jews, not to run and fight alongside the Jewish State’s enemies.

Regrettably, there are anti-Zionists that continue to undermine and attack Israel, who refer to the failed 1948 war to destroy the Jewish State as a “Nakba,” a “catastrophe.” As they channel their hatred on May 15th with angry calls to “Free Palestine,” let Zionists around the world commemorate “Neighbor’s Day,” a day to mark and celebrate the many non-Jews who stayed to become citizens of Israel in 1948 and continue to help the country thrive 70 years on.

The acting-President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas gave another one of his long anti-semitic speeches on April 30, 2018. Much of the western world condemned the speech as something brand new and vile that should not only be condemned, but also marked Abbas as unfit to remain as the leader of the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs). The condemnation was so widesread that Abbas issued some sort of apology a few days later.

Abbas is an Antisemite

Let’s be clear about some things that the media is not telling you:

Abbas did not just say that Jews were themselves responsible for Nazi Germany killing them in the Holocaust, he said that Jews were responsible for ALL of the massacres that had befallen them throughout history. Abbas said “The Jews who moved to Eastern and Western Europe had been subjected to a massacre by one country or another every 10-15 years since the 11th century until the Holocaust in Germany. Okay? But why was this happening? They say that it was happening because they are Jews…. The anti-Jewish (sentiments) was not because of their religion but because of their function in society, which had to do with usury, banks, and so on.”

Abbas whitewashed 1,400 years of Arab antisemitism. After Abbas’ harangue against Jews in Europe and Russia, he said “I challenge you to find a single incident against Jews just because they were Jews in 1,400 years in any Arab country.” He should probably review some basic history from the founding of Islam in the seventh century when the Muslim prophet Mohammed slaughtered Jews in Saudi Arabia, to every country that Muslims invaded in the subsequent centuries, where Jews were often given the choice between conversion or death. Tunisia 1016. Morocco 1033. The list is long.

Abbas said that Jews were shipped to Palestine because the host countries wanted to get rid of them. Abbas said that many world leaders including Lord Balfour from the United Kingdom, Adolf Hitler in Germany and the foreign minister of Russia all hated the Jews and wanted to get rid of them so encouraged them to move to Palestine.

Abbas said he is disgusted by the Israeli national anthem. The essence of the Israeli national anthem is about the longing of Jews to return to their homeland. Abbas argued that the anthem is a farce. “Their [Jews] narrative about coming to this country [Palestine] because of their longing for Zion or whatever -we’re tired of hearing this.“

Abbas reiterated that the Jews have no connection to Palestine. Abbas has long argued that Jews have no history or connection to the land of Israel. He has made the arguments before the United Nations and to Palestinians. He did so again in April 2018: “The truth is that this [Zionism] is a colonial enterprise aimed at planting a foreign body in this region.” He added that the European Jews have no historical connection to Palestine since they are all descendants of Khazars that converted to Judaism in the eighth century.

Abbas made a non-apology. Abbas did not really apologize for his anti-Semitic comments a few days later. He apologized that people were offended by his comments. “If people were offended by my statement in front of the P.N.C., especially people of the Jewish faith, I apologize to them. I would like to assure everyone that it was not my intention to do so, and to reiterate my full respect for the Jewish faith, as well as other monotheistic faiths.” In other words, he stands by his comments and believes them to be true. He is just disappointed that people were offended at hearing his version of the truth. No one has called this out.

Let’s be clear: Abbas hates Jews, not Judaism. The persistent truth is that Abbas has always hated Jews as foreign interlopers in Palestine. For example, he has said that a new state of Palestine will be welcoming of all religions (that would include Judaism), but the PA has existing laws that call for the execution of any Arab that sells land to a Jew. Conclusion: it’s the people, not the faith.

Abbas is a peddler of nasty lies, and many of them are not new. The only additions from the April 30 speech to Abbas’s long history of vile comments are that Jews were at fault for their own massacres because of their “function,” and that they came from Khazar, but these are simple extensions of his prior comments.

So why the sudden uproar?

The Media Has Long Concealed Abbas’s and Palestinians’ Jew Hatred

The United Nations and world media have long defended and protected Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinians in their quest to give the SAPs independence and sovereignty. They have ignored the antisemitism and terrorism from Palestinian Arabs and placed the blame on Israel, as acknowledging Arabs’ hatred of Jews undermines the very notion of peace and justifies many of Israel’s actions.

Palestinians are inherently good, but have become antisemitic because of Israel. The world and liberal press are hard-pressed to charge the SAPs with any wrong-doing. When confronted with something unsavory about the Palestinians, the press tries to paper it over, such as absolving the Palestinians of their overwhelming (93% of people according to the ADL) hatred of Jews. In covering the ADL findings, the New York Times wrote “the Middle East results were not particularly surprising.” Is that because everyone knows that Arabs hate Jews? If that’s obvious, why the sudden commotion about Abbas laying it out clearly in April 2018?

Palestinians “Resort to Violence.” The New York Times actually wrote in 2012 that the virulently antisemitic terrorist group Hamas “took control of Gaza in 2007 and is backed by Iran, is so consumed with hatred for Israel that it has repeatedly resorted to violence.” The Hamas Charter clearly and repeatedly calls for violent jihad and the destruction of the Jewish State. However, the liberal media crafted an alternative reality to make the people of Gaza victims “resorting to violence” instead of being terrorists.

Palestinians are moderate; Israelis are right-wing. The world was so eager to market Abbas as a “moderate,” that it ignored his history of vile comments, because if the leader of the Palestinian Authority was a moderate, his demands were presumably reasonable, and vice-versa. The failure of any peace discussions must therefore be on the “right-wing” (as the liberal press peddled) Israeli leadership.

Palestinian actions are unhelpful; Israeli actions are harmful. Nickolay Mladenov, the United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said in reaction to Abbas’s April 30 antisemitic rant: “Such statements are unacceptable, deeply disturbing and do not serve the interests of the Palestinian people or peace in the Middle East.” Seriously? “Do not serve the interests of the Palestinians?” When Mladenov talks about Israeli settlements in the West Bank, he does not say they are unhelpful, he says they are “threatening the viability of the two-state solution and eroding the prospects for peace.” Somehow noxious antisemitism is not an impediment to peace, only Jews living in houses in their holy land.

These factors have been at play for decades. So why the sudden turn on Abbas? Why would the NY Times write an editorial on May 3, 2018 “Mr. Abbas’s Vile Words” that “by succumbing to such dark, corrosive instincts he [Abbas] showed that it is time for him to leave office.” Abbas has always been vile. He has always negated Jewish rights and history in Israel and has been effective at getting United Nations and the liberal media bodies to support his narrative.

I suggest that there are two main points at play here. One has to do with the alt-left narrative of Palestinian reform and the other with the left-wing attempts to parse antisemitism from Anti-Zionism.

Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism by the Global Left-Wing
and by the Arab and Muslim World

Palestinians continue to reform, and are thereby worthy of sovereignty. For several years, the western world has sought to portray the Palestinians as progressing from their violent and antisemitic past (plane hijackings, murdering of athletes, intifadas) to a moderate stance of co-existence.

Consider the New York Times on May 5, 2018 claiming that while Abbas wrote his doctoral thesis on Holocaust denial (over Abbas’s 13 years of heading the PA, the Times mentioned this disgusting fact only a few times) it pretended that he recanted. “In 2014, on the eve of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, he [Abbas] issued a formal statement calling the Nazi genocide ‘the most heinous crime to have occurred against humanity in the modern era’ and expressing sympathy with the victim’s families.” But Abbas then tied the Holocaust to the plight of the Palestinians, as though there is a remote equivalency between the slaughter of millions of defenseless Jews in the Holocaust to the failure of the Arab armies to destroy the nascent state of Israel. Abbas said “The Palestinian people, who suffer from injustice, oppression and (are) denied freedom and peace, are the first to demand to lift the injustice and racism that befell other peoples subjected to such crimes,” calling Israelis racists like Nazis. That’s not really recanting his book on Holocaust denial when he equates the Jewish State with Nazi Germany.

However, his latest comments provided no room for liberal cover. Abbas’s April 30 gratuitous slander against the Jewish people highlighted a disgusting worldview that can never live at peace and negotiate honestly with the Jewish State. The liberals’ carefully constructed fig leaf of Palestinian moderation was obliterated.

Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism. For the Arab world, it has always been one and the same. The Palestinians elected Hamas to 58% of the Parliament in 2007 with statements in its charter that included:

“Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious.” Preamable

“In face of the Jews’ usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised.” (Article 15)

It is specifically the presence of Jews in Israel and its territories that offends Arabs and Muslims. They don’t believe that Jews have any rights to be in the land and want them gone. As such, they forbid the teaching of the Holocaust in UNRWA schools and find nothing objectionable about Abbas’s latest speech. The Arabs are both antisemitic and anti-Zionist. One is part-and-parcel of the other.

Yet the western world that views itself as progressive has been at pains to tease apart anti-Zionism and antisemitism. Liberals have argued that criticism of Israel cannot be conflated with antisemitism. As such, vilifying Jews OUTSIDE of Israel is considered an offensive comment and clearly antisemitic, such as saying that Jews were to blame for the Holocaust. However, slamming Israeli Jews is fair game, such as when the BBC said that Israeli teenagers were partially responsible for their own murder since they should not have been hitchhiking in the West Bank. The world was content in blaming the victim in the case of Jews in Israel and the Israeli territories. For the alt-left, no Israeli can ever be a pure victim nor any Palestinian Arab a true criminal.

Abbas’s speech was treated with a yawn in the Arab and Muslim world, as antisemitism and anti-Zionism have long been a single cause. But it has confounded the western self-declared “progressives” who are doing their utmost to criticize Israel without the moniker of “anti-Semite” staining their liberal bona fides. As such, they are throwing Abbas under the bus rather than considering their own disturbing positions. Off with Abbas’s head.

The Israeli soldiers took up positions near the Gaza fence. Over 100 men in total, they crouched behind a large berm obscuring the view of their target. They talked.

“We never should have left Gaza in 2005,” said Corporal No-Name Israeli.

“I know,” said Private Faceless Ashkenazi, “but now we can finally rectify the mistake.”

They were called to attention by their commander and fifty conversations dropped in a moment.

“My dear brothers, we will now begin a multi-week attack on the border that was set up dividing our homeland,” the stocky 26-year-old Zionist commander began. “Our mission is to obliterate the fence that marks the beginning of Jew-free land. Every Friday over the course of several weeks, we will come to various spots along the Gaza border and begin to dismantle the fence. We will use a variety of means as the situation demands, but be prepared to use the full array of armaments that you carry.”

The Israeli soldiers were delighted. They shot off their guns in the air and passed candies among each other as though they had just killed a terrorist.

“Begin!” the commander called.

And just like that, 120 soldiers climbed the dune and began to fire upon the Gaza border fence.

The Reaction in Gaza

The Hamas Friday bingo game was just getting exciting. The sweet-faced Ismail Haniyeh, was calling out the numbers for the crowd of 2,000 peace-loving refugees. “I – 48,” he called into the microphone in the large UNRWA-funded mosque. “I – 48. ‘I’ as in ‘Inshallah’ and ’48’ as in the year marking our Nakba.”

Suddenly the crackle of gunfire pierced their quiet Friday ritual.

“The Israelis!” someone cried. “The Israelis are attacking the border. They are trying to reclaim Gaza!”

The head of the popular social service organization knew he needed to take charge. Haniyeh pulled the microphone to his mouth. “People! Hamas does not want there to be any violence. We must take measured approaches to the Israeli attacks. Everyone, go to your home and remove the tires from your vehicles and meet me near the border fence with as many tires as you can muster!”

Within 30 minutes, tens of thousands of simple, kind, gentle Palestinians were at the border of their coastal enclave in a desperate attempt to save their border fence. Members from the global press and United Nations brought tires too.

As they watched their dear fence slowly crumble from the Israeli gunfire, Yahwa Sinwar, another Hamas leader known for his warm outreach to Israelis shouted in a megaphone: “People of Gaza! Protect our fence! Set fire to your tires and roll them towards the fence to obscure the vision of the Israeli snipers. Protect our Gaza! Protect our independence!”

The Gazans were caught off guard. No one had told them to bring matches. Each turned to the right and left for a light.

The UNRWA officials at the rally came to the rescue. They put down the dozens of Molotov cocktails that they were holding and lit up everyone’s tires.

The smoke screen began.

A picture taken on March 30, 2018 from the southern Israeli kibbutz of Nahal Oz across the border from the Gaza strip./ AFP PHOTO / Jack GUEZ (Photo credit should read JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty Images)

The Israelis were alarmed. They were not expecting a protest from the Gazans. The Palestinians had always been peaceful and content with their situation, whether good or bad. But now they were harming the operation by shielding the fence.

The Israeli commander instructed his soldiers to put down their guns. “Throw your grenades towards the fence!” he yelled. “Ideally, as indiscriminately as possible.”

The blasts and booms sent fear into the Gazans’ hearts. The dirt and debris flew everywhere. This was no longer simply a matter of the border fence being destroyed, but the laundry on the lines near the fence was becoming filthy.

Haniyeh ordered the people forward towards the fence. Everyone grabbed the sheets and slingshots that were lying on the ground and began to fling the rocks and debris off in the direction of the Israelis to get them to stop their attack on the fence. Even the press and senior leadership of UNRWA began to throw their Molotov cocktails towards the Israelis in an attempt to reestablish the status quo of peace and civility.

After a few hours, each side returned home, knowing that they would repeat the same dance each Friday until Israel’s Independence Day, when Israelis both celebrate their country’s birth and mourn the truncated nature of their sovereignty in the Jewish Promised Land.

The Palestinian Arabs are engaged in a “protest” at the Gaza border with Israel to draw attention to their “Right of Return” to land in Israel. Pro-Palestinian organizations like Al Jazeera (Qatar) and Press TV (Iran) have produced videos related to the Arabs’ rights. The use of animation and live interviews however do nothing to educate people with actual facts, and how the claim of a Palestinian “Great March of Return” is a sham.

Global International Law

The United Nations developed a Universal Declaration of Human Rights that underscored the basic human rights that all people in the world possess. The UDHR states clearly in Article 13 that:

“1. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within theborders of each State.2. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and toreturn to his country.”

Note that the relevant clause is that a person is entitled to leave his COUNTRY and then return to that country. For Jews, that means that the remaining survivors of the 850,000 people that were kicked out of Arab countries including Iraq, Egypt, Libya and Morocco have the basic human right to return to that country, should they so desire. However, the Stateless Arabs of Palestine (SAPs) have no such right, as Palestine was never a country but an administered region from 1924 to 1948.

The principle of returning to a house, land or town is not based on universal standards, but found in a niche resolution to address the SAPs several decades ago.

Specialized Resolution for Palestinian Arabs also Fail

On December 11, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 194 in the middle of Israel’s War of Independence. Article 11 stated:

“Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible;”

This is the clause that the Palestinian narrative continues to call out, but it fails in many regards:

There are fewer than 30,000 “refugees” from 1948 are alive today. The millions of descendants that claim a right to return have no such claim as they are not refugees;

The actions of the Palestinians have clearly shown that they have no desire to “live at peace with their neighbors,” as evidenced by the many wars and terrorism waged against Israel, the election of a Holocaust denier to the presidency that pays people to kill Israeli Jews, and the election of the terrorist group Hamas to a majority of the Palestinian parliament

Further consider that the same UNGA Res 194 made other statements that the Palestinian Authority rejects, such as Articles 7 and 8:

“detailed proposals for a permanent international regime for the territory of Jerusalem…”

“Resolves that, in view of its association with three world religions, the Jerusalem area, including the present municipality of Jerusalem plus the surrounding villages and towns, the most eastern of which shall be Abu Dis; the most southern, Bethlehem; the most western, Ein Karim (including also the built-up area of Motsa); and the most northern, Shu’fat, should be accorded special and separate treatment from the rest of Palestine and should be placed under effective United Nations control;”

The Palestinians are seeking to turn eastern Jerusalem into its own capital, not a permanent UN town. The PA claims that it already has control of part of this Corpus Separatum – Bethlehem – which they took over in December 1995. Are the Palestinians going to abandon Bethlehem and scheme for eastern Jerusalem, or will they just cherry-pick from UN 194 to validate an invasion of Israel?

One could possibly argue that around 30,000 SAPs over 70 years old who are interested in moving to Israel and living in peace should be allowed to do so, but the Friday protests at the Gaza border are full of young people. These people have no legal rights to move to Israel and their actions at the border constitute a threat of invasion and must be addressed on such basis. And if the PA acting president Mahmoud Abbas wants to quote UN Resolution 181 (which the entire Arab world rejected in 1947) and UN Resolution 194, he should be prepared to relinquish Bethlehem and dreams of eastern Jerusalem.

Palestinian Arabs’ “Great March of Return” is nothing more than the “Great MYTH of Return.”

The United States officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital on December 6, 2017. Several countries have made a variety of arguments as to why they have not – and will not – similarly recognize Israel’s capital city.

Some countries note that Israel’s action on July 30, 1980 in which it declared that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel,” was declared illegal by the United Nations Security Council.

Did countries recognize Jerusalem the day before on July 29, 1980? No.

Did countries recognize the western portion of Jerusalem before the war on June 4, 1967? No.

How is it that so few countries EVER officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, going back to the end of the war of independence? There was no controversy related to eastern Jerusalem during those 18 years until the Jordanians attacked Israel in June 1967, and lost the territory that they had illegally annexed.

Let’s be candid. The issue surrounding Jerusalem has always been about money, in particular, the Suez Canal in Egypt and the Arab world’s enormous oil wealth. Today, it continues to be trade, albeit it is much less important to the global economies than it was decades ago.

The excuse about the eastern half of Jerusalem which includes Muslim holy sites is a fig leaf covering the world’s lust for Arab money, from 1948 until today.

A view of the Old City of Jerusalem from Mt. Scopus(photo: First.One.Through)

And the fig leaf is porous.

Countries already recognize the western half of Jerusalem as being an integral part of Israel. Further, many world leaders (including US Presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush) came to Israel’s capital and addressed the parliament in Jerusalem. They recognized Jerusalem both as part of Israel and de facto as its capital.

Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel in March 2008 spoke at the Israeli Knesset. So when Merkel now states that “the status of Jerusalem is to be resolved in the framework of a two-state solution,” she unashamedly plays out the farce. Germany DOES recognize the western part of Jerusalem as part of Israel and as its functioning capital, but does not want to do it in an “official” capacity as it believes that withholding such recognition might enrich Germany through better relations and economic trading with the dozens of Arab and Muslim countries, and minimize the terrorism in Germany from Islamic extremists. As that seems a bit cold, Merkel put forward the red herring of seeking peace, as if recognizing reality somehow harms peace.

Let’s be clear: most of the world recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital already. The farce of countries not “officially” recognizing Jerusalem is positioned as a prod that pushes Israel towards a peace agreement. But it is nothing of the sort. It is a calculated trade-off between the dignity of the citizens of Israel on one hand, against the commercial self-interest of trading with Arab countries on the other. It is therefore appropriate for Israel to rethink its own trading policies with countries which have no qualms in humiliating it on the global stage.

I am a Zionist because I believe that the Jewish people have a right to self-determination in their homeland.

I am a deep Zionist because I know that no other religion has a connection to land like Jews. Only the Jews believe that God gave them a small parcel of land for an inheritance. The Jewish religion is the only religion that has distinct laws that can only be kept while in the Jewish holy land. The Jews invented the very notion of “holy land,” and have prayed facing Jerusalem for thousands of years.

A sign in Israel about the biblical commandment of Shmita(photo: First.One.Through)

I am an amazed Zionist because I marvel at what the Jewish people have been able to do in just a few decades: to absorb millions of immigrants; to fend off hostile neighbors; to develop a thriving democracy; to lead the world in science and technology; and in efforts to forge a new era of peace, forgave a nation (Germany) that tried to eradicate them, and handed over their holiest location (the Jewish Temple Mount) to a hostile people that had banned Jews from even visiting the site.

I am a loud Zionist because I see how many people ignore and distort reality. How the United Nations can pass resolutions that ignore the 4000-year history of Jews in Israel, how universities and organizations apply unique and double standards for Israel and call out to boycott and strangle the only Jewish country.

I am a real world Zionist. I understand that Israel – like every country in the world – is not perfect. But I accept its imperfections and try to help it make improvements by working WITH the country, not against it.

I am an optimistic Zionist. I believe that countries and companies from around the world will be drawn to Israel’s intellectual capital, strong economy and stable currency that are built on the rule of established laws. The virtuous cycle of investment and trade will lead to stronger and stronger political relations and widespread peace.

I am an eternal Zionist. I have been one since before I was born and will remain one long after I’m gone.